Preparation of titanium dioxide-double-walled carbon nanotubes and its application in flexible dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Titanium dioxide-double-walled carbon nanotubes (TiO₂-DWCNTs) with DWCNTs/TiO₂ of 20 wt.% is prepared by a conventional sol-gel method. Doping the TiO₂-DWCNTs in TiO₂ photoanode, a flexible dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is fabricated. The sample is characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) absorption, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) absorption spectra,electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique and photovoltaic measurement. It is found that adding a certain amount of TiO₂-DWCNTs can efficiently decrease the resistance of charge transport, improve dye adsorption. Under an optimal condition, a flexible DSSC contained with 0.50 wt.% TiO₂-DWCNTs achieves a light-to-electric energy conversion efficiency of 3.89% under a simulate solar light irradiation of 100 mW·cm^-2.

Keywords

flexible dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) / titanium dioxide (TiO₂) / double-walled carbon nanotube (DWCNT) / sol-gel method

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2009AA03Z217), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 90922028, 50842027).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg